Month: July 2013

Day 34, evening: This is as far from the ship as I want to go. Legends say this is the land of the Guul-Hai. Nobody from Virten has ever seen one. Stories say they move without a sound and can melt into the dark. They are supposed to be Orcs, but some tales say that they were changed by the mages long before the Sundering, and they’re now something else. We have lost good men already, and now people are nervous. So this will be our last search. Even the Kartur-Hhakrall are restless. We’ll try to make contact. Then, we’ll head home.

Day 35, morning: Have worked out a search pattern, and today we will start criss-crossing the area looking for tracks or settlements.

Day 35, evening: Nothing. No sign of habitation at all. The scouts noted an unusual number of wolf tracks, so we secured our camp perimeter carefully.

Day 36, evening: Another fruitless day. Men exhausted from searching, and all scouting parties returned to camp having found no sign of Orcs. Plenty of animal tracks, though, and we ate well on a deer that we felled. Disturbed by the disappearance of a bearer, sent to fetch water from the spring at dusk.

Day 37, morning: Scouts searched the spring. Snow fell yesterday, and ground around the spring is muddy, so tracking should have been easy. Our man’s tracks just stopped a few paces from the water. Lots of other tracks in the area, all wolves, but no sign of a struggle, no sign of him being chased, felled or dragged. Someone suggested the Gull-Hai might be riding wolves, but from the paw size and short gait these wolves are too small to ride.

Day 37, evening: Another useless day. Long discussion around the campfire, working out a new plan. Someone asked why there are so many wolf tracks, when we haven’t seen wolves. This suggested a new direction. Can’t solve the mystery of where the Guul-Hai are. So we’ll look into mystery of the wolves. Maybe there’s a link.

Day 38, morning: Awoken by screaming. Found our missing bearer. His body was hanging from a tree in the middle of camp. He had been stripped, and guts, heart and brain removed. No sign of clothes or innards. Our surgeon says he had been dead for a day. Much shouting at the guards who had been on watch. No idea how someone got past them with a corpse. No tracks on the ground. Guessed someone had climbed the tree to string him up, but no tracks by the tree. Someone suggested that his killers must fly. I dismissed the idea. No rumours of flying creatures here, and Orcs certainly can’t fly. But I have no theory of my own.

Day 38, evening: Better day. Two scouting parties found big groups of wolves. The groups were much bigger than normal wolf packs, and they wandered aimlessly. Someone suggested they were more like a flock of sheep than a pack of predators.

Day 39, morning. Bad morning. One of our human scouts has vanished, from the middle of the camp. Nobody saw him leave, no tracks, no sign of a struggle. Then I had my first argument with the Kartur-Hhakrall. They’ve been absolutely loyal until now. But they think it’s stupid to keep searching. They look nervous. It isn’t like them to be scared of anything. I asked them if they didn’t want to find fellow Orcs. The Gull-Hai have been separate from our Orc retainers for five centuries. I assumed they’d be curious. They said no. They said the Gull-Hai are unnatural, tainted. They said that a good leader would turn back. I understand what that means. I told them we’d search for one more day, and then I’d decide what to do.

Day 39, evening: Spent the day looking for and watching wolf packs, or herds. This may be a good line of enquiry. One scout reports seeing an Orc moving amongst a group of wolves, though later investigation showed only wolf tracks there, no Orc tracks. Another scout found a cooking pit, buried to conceal it. I asked him how he found it and he said he just searched in an area where there were no tracks, in the middle of an area with lots of wolf tracks. He estimated that half a dozen people might have eaten from the food cooked there, and suggested that we search for similar trackless areas amidst areas with lots of wolf activity. It is a good suggestion, but I am starting to agree with the Kartur-Hhakrall, that we should not be here.

Day 40, morning: Our missing scout was found by the camp fire, where he had been sleeping. As before, clothes, heart, guts and brain were missing, and our surgeon says he has been dead for a day. I have given the order to strike camp and head back.

Day 40, evening: Two hundred paces from camp a Kartur-Hhakrall scout smelled something, so went to look. He came back with gnawed animal bones. He said the tooth marks showed that Orcs had been eating them, last night. There were other bones, from previous nights. The place where they were had a clear view down into our camp site. We had spent five days failing to find the the Gull-Hai, and they had been watching us all along. We marched more swiftly after that, and covered a good distance, glad to be leaving these lands.

Nominated by his Alliance-mates, this month’s Player Spotlight focuses on leader of the Alliance, The Order, Pellinell. A big thank you to those who sent in nominations, and to Pellinell for his contributions to the Illyriad community.Learn more about the Player Spotlight program at our website and nominate players by sending an email to community@illyriad.co.uk.

What brought you to Illyriad and how long have you been playing?

I actually found Illy by chance. I was bored and looking for something to do, I discovered Illy through a google search. That was in December of 2011. I was instantly hooked!

Have you played many other online games or been active in other online communities?

Illy is my first online game and the only one I play currently.

Any hidden talents or interesting hobbies outside of gaming?

A hobby besides Illy ? I love being outside. Camping, fishing, hunting and just being in nature is something I enjoy very much.

What keeps you playing Illyriad?

The Community is a huge part of what keeps me here. Aside from that the tourneys and friendships I have made here keep me interested. I also very much enjoy the complexity and intricacies of the game.

What’s your favorite aspect of the game?

Again I would say the community is one of my favorite aspects. But I also enjoy the tourneys and building my cities.

What’s your proudest achievement in game so far?

Starting The Order and growing from a small 2 member alliance with less than a 100,000 population to what it is today. Of course I share that achievement with my alliance mates. They are great!

What are you most looking forward to for the future of Illyriad?

Factions! I am looking forward to what that will bring to Illy. And of course I am looking forward to Broken Lands.

What area of the game do you think needs the most improvement?

The mail system could really use a overhaul. I would like to have the ability to place mails in folders and maybe a search box to find older mails.

What advice would you give a new player in Illyriad?

When I was a newb I was surprised at how helpful everyone was. Within my first few hours Myr and Lurking had sent me res and answered my newb questions. I would say any new player should make them selves into GC and introduce themselves. The players there are very helpful and happy to help with resources and helping with strategy and answering newb questions. For me joining Toothless? was a great help and I would recommend T? to all newbs looking for a place to learn the game and develop friendships that will last throughout your time here.

Day 29, evening: We have made camp in some sort of ancient Dwarven ruin. It will be an uncomfortable night. There is scattered rubble on the hillside, but nothing that provides cover. So we have come in through the main entrance, to passages cut into the rock. The floors slope downwards, away from the opening. Our engineer says that the passages might once have continued back for miles, but the whole structure has slipped into the ground, swallowed up in the Sundering. We checked all the passages, and they all end in collapse.

Day 30, early morning: The guards we posted at the entrance raised the alarm. They say they saw a figure, skulking. A quick search found nobody. We will look again in the morning.

Day 30, morning: Started to pack up camp, but then the scouts reported in. They found our visitor’s tracks. Dwarf footprints. There shouldn’t be Dwarves this far east. So we will stay today, and investigate.

Day 30, evening: Scouting parties fanned out, looking for our visitor, or any other evidence of Dwarves living near here. They found nothing, but the guards back at camp saw him again, watching them.

Day 30, midnight: I set everyone to work this evening. It seems our visitor wants to get into these ruins. Maybe he has hidden something here. Maybe there’s a secret passage, some Dwarf deception here. So we searched. After five hours, nothing has been discovered. We need some sleep now.

Day 31, morning: The guards think our visitor is still lurking. So, the plan today is that we set out again, with search parties going in all directions. But after an hour they will fan out to form a single long line, and return. They will act like a net, trapping our visitor. I want to talk to him.

Day 31, afternoon: We have lost our opportunity. The Dwarf fell for the ruse, but we lost him. We went past him, fanned out, came back, trapped him. He ran, we chased. We hailed him, he kept running. We chased him to the edge of a cliff. He looked wretched. His hair was greasy and lank, his skin was sickly grey. In his left eye socket some sort of metal contraption whirred and moved around. We encircled him, and I tried to question him. Did he live in the ruins? No answer. Were there any other Dwarves living nearby? No answer. Could he please tell us his name? No answer. I told the Kartur-Hhakrall to grab him. They stepped forward, he stepped back and plunged fifty paces down the cliff. He killed himself rather than let us take him. I have now set the Kartur-Hhakrall to scale the cliff and check the body.

Day 31, evening: I should have been clearer with the Kartur-Hhakrall. I said check the body. I should have said retrieve the body. They checked it. They say it was not a real Dwarf. They say he did not have blood in his veins, but some black oil. I would have liked our surgeon to examine it. But our Orcs had checked it, and then they burned it. I can see the smoke rising in the distance. I asked why they built such a big bonfire for him. They said that they weren’t taking any chances.